


Four Houses

by cthchewy



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Claude-centric, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen, Worldbuilding, schemin'
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2020-12-17 01:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21045986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cthchewy/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: Claude has plans for world domination (for the Greater Good), and it begins with him taking over Hogwarts with mild poisons and a Hufflepuff army.





	1. The Sorting

The decision to move to his mother’s homeland to attend Hogwarts was an easy one. Someday, Claude is going to be Supreme Mugwump of the International Confederation of Wizards, or at least the shadowy figure _behind_ such a person, and he will use his power to destroy prejudice by passing equal rights laws for all sentient magical creatures!

And busting open the Statute of Secrecy. For reasons. _Good _reasons too, not that the majority of the wizarding world would understand.

...But those schemes are still simmering in their cauldrons. They won’t be ready for many, many years. First, he needs to grow up. (Nobody takes children seriously, which is both a blessing and a curse.) He needs an _education_. While he’s been home-schooled for many years as heirs to prestigious magical lineages almost always are, and while it would be much simpler to attend Uagadou as many of his paternal relatives have done, Claude instead chooses Hogwarts because he needs an education in _wand stuff_. It’s imperative for the pursuit of his new-found ambitions, for which he has _very good reasons_ even if he can’t quite articulate them all at the moment.

Here he sits, in an otherwise empty train compartment, with a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ open before him, becoming slightly frustrated at the lack of information about the sorting ceremony. Claude and the book have been inseparable since he begged his godmother Judith to buy it for him last week on their bonding/shopping trip to Diagon Alley.

“You’ve grown into a menace,” Judith told him, but bought the book anyway. Even though she saw right through him, Claude counted it as a win. Responsible adults, like Judith when she’s pretending she didn’t become an auror just to beat the shit out of bad guys, can never refuse him when he requests more books. They always sigh and mutter about how there are much worse things a boy his age could be into. At least he’s not developing addictions to sweets or pranks, right? At least he’s not picking fist fights with every other child in sight like his mother did at his age, right? It’s totally fine to spoil him a little if it doubles as fostering intellectual growth.

The book is written in an unbearably boring way, which is a feat in and of itself. With figures as heroic and legendary as the Founders, Bathilda Bagshot could’ve at _least_ written them a little cooler. Every bit of their lives and the values they wanted to instill in their houses is chronicled down to the most inane detail, yet there is still no mention of how students are chosen for those houses, and _that_ is the root of Claude’s frustration.

Without knowing how to position himself most advantageously within Hogwarts, how can he begin concocting any contingency plans? How does someone prove to be courageous enough for Gryffindor, for example? Do they have to perform an act of courage, or do the teachers just pick whoever _looks_ brave? Do they have heart-seers in wizarding Britain?

The compartment door opens as he’s absorbed in this dilemma. Claude jerks his head up to see two other first year students peering in, marked by the lack of house colors on their school robes. They look somewhat similar, both with light hair and delicate features, though the sibling-ish vibe he gets from them is probably more from the way they hold themselves. There’s a stiffness in their motions that Claude has recently come to associate with British purebloods of the really upper crust type – the type Judith flips off behind their backs.

They look at him a second too long to be comfortable. Actually, the boy seems fine. Or at least human enough. He’s tense and unsure of how to hold himself, just a baby noble in training trying to remember all his etiquette lessons. The girl, though. Her gaze makes Claude feel as if he’s been judged and found terribly wanting.

“Excuse us. Is this compartment occupied?” she asks anyway.

Claude shrugs. “Just by me.”

They exchange a brief look before the boys says, somewhat haltingly, “May we join you?”

“Sure. I’m Claude, by the way.”

“Edelgard,” the girl says simply. Once seated, she settles her robes and flicks her hair like a goddamn storybook princess.

Before entering the compartment and closing the door behind him, the boy bows so stiffly it’s like he’s got a ruler lodged up his behind and straight through the length of his spine. “I’m Dimitri. It’s a pleasure to meet your acquaintance,” he says like a goddamn storybook knight.

Are these people for real? It’s been said that wizarding Britain is one of the more isolated and conservative magical communities, but it really seems like these two came from five centuries ago. Claude tries to keep smiling politely, but he’s not sure what his expression looks like.

Edelgard glances at the book, still spread out on the table. “Getting ahead on your schoolwork already?”

“Oh, this? Nah, I’m just trying to figure out how the sorting will go. My mother wouldn’t tell me, said it should be a surprise. Do _you _guys know how it works?”

“I’m not sure,” Dimitri says. “I have an older friend who mentioned that a magical artifact was involved, but he wouldn’t say anything more.”

“It’s _tradition _to keep us in the dark.” Edelgard crosses her arms and scoffs. It’s the most human expression Claude has seen on her yet. Huh. Maybe there’s a person in there after all!

“Well, do you know what house you want to be in? To be honest, I’ve been abroad for most of my life, so I’m not sure which house would be best.”

Dimitri’s eyes brighten with interest. “Really? I’ve always wanted to travel. I hope you can tell me about the places you’ve been.”

“Uh… sure?”

“As for houses, I hope I get into Gryffindor. Not that I think the other houses are bad, but the friend that I mentioned, he’s Gryffindor, and we have some other friends who will probably be Gryffindors too. I want to stay together with everyone.” He looks to Edelgard.

She’s frowning. “You should have stayed with them, then. With Glenn and Felix and the lot.”

“I want to spend time with you too, El. You’re my sister.”

“_Step_-sister,” Edelgard replies.

Now they’re both frowning. Seems like Edelgard doesn’t get along with Dimitri’s friends. It’s too early for Claude to be diving into other people’s family drama like this, so he pretends not to notice the tension.

“You don’t think you’ll be in Gryffindor?” he asks Edelgard.

“It tends to run in families,” she says. “It doesn’t always work out that way, but most of your values you get from your family. That’s why Dimitri’s friends will most likely be Gryffindors – because his family and theirs have almost always been sorted there.”

“But not yours?”

She nods. “It’s a bit mixed on my side, but Ravenclaw and Slytherin, mostly. If you know your family’s history, you can predict your sorting quite accurately. Assuming they’ve been attending Hogwarts for some time, that is.”

“On my mother’s side, yeah. She was a Gryffindor, but the rest have been Hufflepuff, I think? Huh. That’s really useful. Thanks, Edelgard!”

The snack cart rolls by then, and they end up sharing chocolates as they chat about classes and quidditch, which Dimitri insists is the best sport ever and it’s apparently a travesty that Claude has been missing out on it.

They’re not so bad, when they relax. Maybe they can all be friends.

* * *

“I’m not surprised. Nope. Nothing can surprise me anymore,” Claude says. He keeps his eyes resolutely forward, toward the head table where Headmistress Rhea gazes serenely over the student body.

The Sorting Hat has just finished its song, and Claude wants to scream. His suffering gets a snicker from the redheaded boy next to him, who had been part of the group that ambushed Dimitri once they got off the train. Edelgard is on his other side, using him as a buffer.

The _really _uptight-looking Deputy Headmaster, Professor Seteth, begins calling out names.

“Aegir, Ferdinand!” is the first to go.

The boy strides up to the stool, chest puffed out. He bellows, “I am Ferdinand von Aegir!” before putting on the hat. Everyone cringes, even Seteth.

One second passes, then two. Three.

“Gryffindor!”

Ferdinand makes his way to his new house table, but not before shooting a very obvious glare at their direction.

Claude’s not sure who the hatred is for until Edelgard hisses under her breath, “Ugh, _why.”_

“Holy shit,” Claude whispers to her. “He looks like he’s gonna kill you.”

“He thinks he’s my rival for some reason.”

“Arnault, Dorothea” goes to Slytherin after half a minute of consideration. “Bergliez, Caspar” literally runs to the stool and vibrates as he sits. He is pronounced Gryffindor as soon as the first hair of his head touches the hat, before it even lands fully on his head.

“Blaiddyd, Dimitri!” Professor Seteth bellows.

“Gryffindor!” the Hat again proclaims. Cheers erupt for him, louder than they had been for the other students. Dimitri blushes and ducks his head as he hurries off to join his house, where he is immediately pulled into a noogie by some older boys.

Immediately following this, “Dominic, Annette” is the first student sorted into Ravenclaw, and “Edmund, Marianne” the first for Hufflepuff. Dimitri’s three friends, two boys and a girl, look to each other nervously, knowing their turns will come soon.

The first boy, Felix, spends a fair amount of time under the hat before he, too, is sent to Gryffindor. It seems like Edelgard’s hypothesis is holding up so far.

Then the girl, Ingrid, is called. She spends an even longer time under the hat. There’s silence for more than a minute, then two. Students start to grow antsy, and Claude can see Ingrid wringing her hands as she holds them in her lap.

Finally, the hat says, “Ravenclaw!”

Ingrid’s expression is strange as she leaves for the Ravenclaw table. Her brows are furrowed and her smile is weak, but her shoulders have dropped, relaxed. It’s easy to imagine her feeling both guilty and relieved.

Dimitri shoots sad and hopeful glances at the remaining boy, who just a moment later responds to Seteth’s shout of “Gautier, Sylvain!”

Claude shares a small smile with Edelgard. “He didn’t seem very Gryffindor.”

She raises an eyebrow. “I’d wager he’s not.”

It takes a while with Sylvain, too. More than Felix but less than Ingrid, about a minute, and then…

“Slytherin!”

Claude and Edelgard exchange another knowing glance.

After that, he zones out for a bit trying to figure out the professors. Some of them look cool, but far too many appear too stern. Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw – the sorting goes on.

“Hresvelg, Edelgard!”

She strides forth with her head held high, eyes cold as ice, the glimpse of humanity Claude had seen gone in an instant. And just as Edelgard had predicted, she goes to Slytherin.

The spaces to either side of him are now empty. More and more students are called. There’s less than half remaining, then less than a third. It leaves Claude feeling exposed, and he really hasn’t been able to figure anything out. Most students went where they thought they would go, but some of them didn’t.

Thoughts spiraling, it isn’t long before his name is called and Claude approaches with stomach roiling and face set in what he hopes looks like a carefree smile.

Here it is. The moment of reckoning.

The hat is lowered over his head. Claude feels his palms start to sweat.

_“I don’t normally say this, but perhaps a little _less_ self-awareness would do you good, young man.”_

He jolts! There is a voice _inside _his head, and somehow that makes him physically straighten up from his slouch. He wishes he could also straighten out the mess in his mind. The Hat is company, after all, and Claude was raised with proper manners even if he likes to pretend otherwise.

_“Oh, yes, you’re an interesting one. Yes, I agree your mind _is_ terribly crowded even with yourself as the sole occupant. I can already tell it’s going to take a while with you, but worry not! We’ll get you sorted right as rain.”_

The Sorting Hat hems and haws for a bit, and as this is happening Claude shoots rapidly from thought to thought. What charms are on the Sorting Hat? Legilimency charms must be part of it, definitely. Does that make the Hat a legilimens? Does _that_ mean Claude has some natural talent in occlumency? And if a sentient hat can read his thoughts, does that mean it’s hearing all his thoughts as he’s thinking them right this very moment, and does that mean he can… telepathically communicate with it? Does anyone sit down and just have tea with the Hat? Could he have tea with the Hat?

_“That’s very kind of you, but I am a _sorting_ hat, dear. I just sort students; I’m not anyone’s therapist.”_

Okay, yes, he can telepathically communicate with the hat. And it doesn’t have to be therapy, per se… It’s just such a missed opportunity not to pick the Hat’s ‘mind’ if it’s actually the eldest person-ish being in the entire castle and has intimate knowledge of _everyone_ who ever attended Hogwarts.

“_Only of their eleven year old selves, mind you. I’m sure you already know most eleven year olds are not as mentally advanced as you. And many people, you’ll find, grow up to be very different.”_

True. Oh, but the potential blackmail!

“_Well, that about settles you in Slytherin, wouldn’t you say?”_

No no, not Slytherin! Not yet!

“_And why not? Those are some very large ambitions I’m seeing. In Slytherin they would be nurtured. Your housemates would gravitate towards such cunning. You could even have minions on which to practice your budding leadership skills.”_

Claude takes deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth. He tries to get his thoughts in order despite the slight murmuring he can start to hear from the students. So far, no one has been under the hat for this long.

Slytherin has a less than stellar reputation, that’s true. But Claude wasn’t born and raised here, so it doesn’t matter much to him on an emotional level. It’s not like he’s repulsed by it. If anything, he would fit in _too well_ in the house of cunning, and that’s the problem. Why would the truly cunning people play their cards so openly? The _most_ cunning _most _ambitious people would hide in another house if they could, and leave Slytherin for the wannabes, even if the thought of so many little snake minions is very tempting.

If Claude’s going to scheme his way through his school years, he wants to be a Hufflepuff. No one ever suspects the Puffs. Judith was a Puff, and now she beats the shit out of people and gets to blame it all on her Gryffindor colleagues. Plus, they’re loyal to their own just like Slytherins are. He wants Hufflepuff minions.

“_Hufflepuff, eh? A rare first choice. Yes, I can see you’re not afraid of hard work. Your patience and tolerance could find a warm home in the badger’s den. It’s not a lack of Hufflepuff that I see in you, but rather too much of other houses. Hufflepuff would not be best for you.”_

What? No? But didn’t Helga Hufflepuff accept every student who wanted to join her house?

“_Not if the other founders had claimed them first!”_ The hat’s sing-song voice is too chipper as it destroys Claude’s dreams. _“They fought over students once in a while, but Helga was always above that.”_

Well who would want to call dibs on him then, he wonders. Besides Slytherin, that is. Could he be put in Ravenclaw, Claude thinks to the Hat. Ravenclaw curiosity often got their students in trouble, but it just as easily got them out of it once it was made clear that they were just “being Ravenclaws” in the pursuit of knowledge. Claude could be very Ravenclaw! He schemes a lot, sure, but so far he's done it mostly for _books_. What’s more Ravenclaw than scheming to get _more books_? He tries very hard to beam an image of his old bedroom to the Hat, which had maps and star charts and an alchemy array next to the periodic table covering the walls. Piles of books towered over the desk and spilled onto the floor and all around his bed and even everywhere _on _his bed except for a Claude-shaped space in the middle.

_“A Ravenclaw’s sharp mind and love of knowledge you have, and the eagle’s nest could hone your intellect into the greatest weapon. Yet, the truest Ravenclaw seeks knowledge for its own sake, while for you it is a means to an end… a trait worthy only of Sl–”_

Wait just a moment there! There’s one more house!

_“Come now, you must have realized how all your reasoning has had a certain serpentine bent to it? A snake in badger’s or eagle’s or lion’s clothes is still a snake. If anything, this ability you have to so easily shed your skins is the most snake-like of all.”_

Shush, Hat. There’s one more house. Claude didn’t want to resort to this. He really doesn’t like fighting or declarations of righteousness, but he can roar with the best of them if it comes down to it! His mother is a goddamn warrior goddess even now, and she was so much worse in her youth. She was probably the most Gryffindor person to have come out of that house since Godric himself, and she rampaged across the world looking for duels until she finally found a man who could out-Gryffindor her, and then she immediately _married_ that guy while they were both still sporting busted lips and black eyes. His duel-crazy parents did _not_ raise him to be a coward! Channeling Ferdinand, he shouts into his mind, _I AM CLAUDE VON RIEGAN!_

_“...Is that what you really want?”_

Well… no.

“SLYTHERIN!”

Curse you, Hat! Gaining a Hufflepuff army will be so much harder now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything about this is cliché, predictable, and self-indulgent. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a million of these crossovers by now, and I really tried to stop myself but like… all through my first playthrough, I kept imagining the Golden Deer as squishy disaster Hufflepuffs led by a Slytherin. I really need to get this out of my system, so it’s happening now. I’m doing it. Sorry?
> 
> Canonically, I know Almyra is like, Fantasy Persia with Fantasy Turkish influences. (HAHAHA CLAUDE IS PRINCE OF PERSIA) I struggled with its placement for this fic and settled on North Africa basically because… I’m lazy. Uagadou exists and I didn’t want to create my own magical academy. Historically, the Achaemenid Empire and the Ottoman Empire both controlled parts of North Africa, so there! My bullshit backstory is justified! :P
> 
> It'll be relevant later on, I guess? IDK, I have ~plans~ that will hopefully come to fruition.


	2. The Aftermath

It’s nine o’clock on his first night at Hogwarts. Dimitri has had a busy day, and he knows he should go to bed early to be refreshed for the first day of classes tomorrow. Somehow, though, he can’t stop worrying about his friends.

They’ve always been together, him and Felix, Sylvain, and Ingrid. He’s happy to be able to spend more time with Glenn again, but Glenn has always been their cool older brother who has friends his own age. It’s not quite the same with the others, who’ve been his playmates since they were all in diapers. Part of him must have known they couldn’t _all_ get sorted into the same house, but he hadn’t thought it would be so bad. Actually knowing that he’ll have to be without Sylvain and Ingrid is like suddenly being down two limbs.

Dimitri is sitting next to Felix on a plush rug in the Gryffindor common room, both nursing mugs of herbal tea. Felix looks miserable, too. He’s pouting into his tea. Dimitri is reminded of when they were younger and Felix would cling to Sylvain even more than his own brother. Other kids dragged around teddy bears or security blankets. Felix dragged around Sylvain.

“We’ll still see him in classes, and we could go visit him or invite him over,” Dimitri says in a low voice. They’re trying not to attract too much attention from the other students milling about.

Felix grumbles, “Why would I want to see that traitor?”

Felix being dishonest about his feelings is his normal setting. But ‘traitor’? What a strange thing to say. “What’s that supposed to mean?” Dimitri asks. “It’s not like anyone chooses where they get sorted.”

“Some people do,” Felix replies. “Maybe not you, but _I _had a choice. The Sorting Hat asked me if I was sure I wanted Gryffindor; it said I’d be happier in Hufflepuff instead. Sylvain and Ingrid took even longer to sort, so I bet they were getting choices, too. Traitors.”

“Oh.” Dimitri can’t think of anything else to say. Maybe in some horrid alternate universe, Felix had left him too, and all four of them were split up among the different houses. What if he’d been all alone, without even Glenn? Dimitri has never made a new friend all on his own before. It makes him nervous just thinking about it.

“I’m not mad at Ingrid,” Felix says after a while. “She and Sylvain can’t stand each other sometimes, so I get why she might have wanted a break from him. But Sylvain went _after_ her, so he was trying to get away from _us_.”

“...Oh,” Dimitri says again, eyes downcast and voice fading into soft echoes in his mug. That does sound rather bad, the way Felix explains it.

But, well, Felix is really bad with people. _Really_ bad. Worse than Dimitri, even. (Who, again, has never even made a new friend all on his own before in all his eleven years of life.) Felix might be wrong about Sylvain, and Dimitri says as much, but much more politely, of course.

“Let’s not think the worst of someone without getting their side of the story first,” he says.

“Whatever. You can talk to him if you want. I’m gonna kick his ass.”

Felix is the shortest of them and has never been able to kick anyone’s ass. This fact most likely hasn’t changed in the two weeks since their last tussle, but Dimitri kindly doesn’t point that out.

* * *

The Ravenclaw common room is nice and quiet and orderly. The first years are gathered around the fireplace discussing various things. The conversation started with their favorite books, because obviously that’s the best way to get to know someone, and then meandered to other areas of interest. The upperclassmen have allowed them to have this prime seating area for tonight because they’re all rational and responsible students. They know it can be overwhelming when one first enters a boarding school, and are doing their part to boost everyone’s morale.

Also, there are no loud, stupid boys always getting into fights with each other when they play Knights. There are only calm and quiet boys and girls, and if Ingrid says she wants to play Knights, they’ll _let_ her be a knight without any fuss. No one in Ravenclaw would _ever_ insist that she be the princess just because she’s a girl, or the spirit of Rowena will strike them down!

“How do you play?” Ashe asks.

“Oh, you’re muggleborn, aren’t you? Sorry, I forgot. It’s like tag, but on broomsticks,” Ingrid tries to explain. “The dragons guard the princess and the knights try to rescue her. If the dragons tag the knights, they’re out, and if all the knights are out, they lose. There are ways for knights to get back in the game or even destroy dragons, but those rules are more complicated. Now, the princess isn’t allowed to move until a knight tags her, and they have to fly to the safe zone together for the knights to win. We should make a league since, as first years, we’re not allowed to try out for Quidditch yet.”

“That sounds fun!” he says. Immediately after, his smile drops and Ingrid can practically feel the confidence draining out of him. “But I don’t know how to fly yet, and I don’t think I’d be any good. Do you think I could be a squire first, instead of a full knight?”

“That’s not– that’s not a _thing…_ Linhardt!” Ingrid turns to pursue a new target instead. “You’ve played before, haven’t you? Will you join my league?”

Linhardt yawns, as he’s been constantly doing all day. “Mmm, yeah. I only–” _ya__aaaa__wn_ “only play princess though. I’ve gotten quite good at sleeping through games…”

Ingrid’s already fragile smile shatters and her eyes grow wide. “You’re still on a broom, though. Up in the air. Probably higher than all the other players.”

“Of course,” he drawls. “Even I know the princess is a seeker analogue. Don’t worry about me, and don’t hold back for my sake. I make sure to go _all _the way up to avoid most of the body-slamming.”

“That’s even worse! Lin, you’re on a _broom_, you’ll fall off and _die!_”

Ashe is frightened, too. “Gosh, this seems even more dangerous than I thought. Maybe I can’t do it after all.”

“Well, don’t say that until you’ve at least had your first flying lesson! You could be a prodigy for all you know! The next Great Wronski!”

“O-oh no, I couldn’t possibly be…”

Ugh! Why are they so passive?!

It’s fine, Ingrid tells herself. She can work with this. They just need little pushes in the right direction for her to get her Knights team!

So what if Ashe’s self-esteem is so low he thinks he’s only worthy of pretending to be a squire (which is not even a thing), and Linhardt volunteered to be the princess just so he can _sleep on a broom __and fall off and die_? So what if Annette is crying in the corner over being separated from her best friend while still smashing cookies into her tear-stained face? So what if Bernadetta ran screaming from them five seconds after she sat down, when Ingrid had only asked her, “Do you like adventure books”?

… Okay, fine. They need some serious work.

Luckily for Ravenclaw, Ingrid has _loads_ of experience wrangling troublesome idiots.

* * *

In the so-far-idiot-free Slytherin common room, Claude is playing a difficult game of wizarding chess against Sylvain. There had been something of an informal tournament among the older students earlier in the evening. It was their way of teaching the newbies to be more observant.

Slytherins, being ambitious, seem on average to be quite socially aware. The upperclassmen had, with subtle hints and gestures, told them to watch and learn. The games never consumed all the players’ attention. They chatted throughout, probing for weaknesses in the opponent, and when a game was finished, the players sometimes demonstrated that they had been listening in on other conversations happening nearby.

The game that Claude is playing now is difficult not because Sylvain is a master tactician – he’s good, but not _that_ good. It’s difficult because they’re both trying to incorporate new chess moves they observed as well as chatting with each other and trying (and mostly failing) to keep track of the things being said around them.

Of course, not everyone is in on these games, whether they haven’t picked up the hints or just refuse the invitation. Some, like Edelgard, have chosen merely to observe. Claude and Sylvain received approving nods when they took up the seats their seniors vacated, showing that they understood the way of things here, but Edelgard one-upped them both by _already having a minion_. Possibly two. Possibly _three_ soon? How is that fair?

As soon as the feast had finished, and the tour of the school began, a shadow had snuck up alongside Edelgard and clung to her, two steps behind and one to the left. _Always_. Like he’d _practiced_ for it, or been _born_ for it. This shadow is Hubert.

Appearances can be deceiving, and it’s usually wise to hold off on making judgments. However, intuition is important as well, and Hubert is setting off all the alarms. He looks exactly like the muggle concept of a creepy demon child. Ghostly pale, dark-haired, deep-set eyes that scream mental instability… And the way he glares at anyone who approaches Edelgard? Claude is not touching that. He refuses to die of mysterious circumstances at such a tragically young age.

The maybe-minions are more interesting, anyway. There’s Petra, who hasn’t spoken much at all. Where Hubert is confident in his place by Edelgard’s side, Petra sort of hovers at a distance, though she is still clearly following. And she has a _tattoo on her face_. It’s the most badass thing ever. Everyone’s been dying to hear her story, though they’re all too tactful to ask outright.

Except Dorothea, who will probably become Minion #3. Dorothea is the only muggleborn in Slytherin, and she’s _bubbly_. She’s been gushing over all the magical things that are new to her, and apparently that includes people, too.

“I’m _so_ jealous of you two,” she says to Edelgard and Petra. “You’re like the princesses in my favorite books!”

Okay, it’s a bit too heavy on the fawning for Claude’s taste, but he can see it’s still effective when coming from someone as pretty as Dorothea. She looks like the type who would instantly become Queen Bee in any non-magical school. The other girls are both blushing at the compliments.

Claude’s bishop takes Sylvain’s pawn. Sylvain pretends he didn’t see that coming and uses a frustrated sigh to mouth ‘she’s good’.

Dorothea goes after Petra. “I hope I’m not being too forward, but I’ve been admiring your tattoo all day! Does it have, like, any meaning behind it?”

“Ah, yes,” Petra says. She halts as if to get her thoughts in order. “It is a mark that is for, ah, that is being given for the coming of age in my homeland. It is meaning I have had my first hunt.”

Claude surreptitiously glances over. Dorothea’s eyes are like stars. She _is_ good, to be able to get such information out of people naturally.

“Wow, that sounds amazing! Where’s your homeland? Did you move here for school?”

“I am being a woman of Brigid. As Brigid has very soonly – er, very recently become… tied… to Britain, my grandfather is sending me to Hogwarts as a… gesture of goodwill! The Hresvelg family is… working… with us. I am to be staying with Edelgard until the coming of graduation.”

There’s a lot to unpack in that statement. Lots of politics and, Claude guesses, very shady business that’s much too big for first year students. Petra is pretty good as well, to be able to conceal just enough information using a language she still struggles with.

“Um, I thought you were Irish when I heard your name. I mean, Macneary? And Brigid sounds quite Irish too,” Dorothea says.

“Oh, yes! Brigid is being some Irish! Brigid is being an island in the Irish Sea, when it is not being an island in Indonesia. An labhraíonn tú Gaelige?”

At this point in the conversation, more than half the students in the common room are listening in. Claude and Sylvain abandon the chess board to pay closer attention to this Very Important information.

“How does that work?” Dorothea asks, thereby gaining social currency from all of Slytherin.

Petra tells a story of how a powerful Irish witch named Brigid traveled across the world until she met the great Barong, guardian of the forests, on a lush tropical island. Together they defeated the most foul black witch Rangda and freed Barong’s people from tyranny. Along the way they became such good friends that they wished never to be apart, but Barong could not leave his people, and Brigid had begun to miss the cold woods of her homeland. So they thought on this problem for many moons, until it was decided that everyone, all the inhabitants of the little island, would come with them to Ireland. Using long forgotten magic, they moved the entire island across the world. Now, in the Irish Sea, there is a tropical island that the people call Brigid after one of their greatest legends.

“And when she returned, Brigid was being hailed as a great witch in her homeland. Some people began to call her a goddess or a saint.”

What. The. Fuck.

Petra finishes her story with a satisfied nod, probably unaware of how effectively she’s just stomped Claude’s brain into mush. He was not prepared for this. This isn’t something he thought magic could _do_.

“But you said...” Claude hesitates to ask. “You said Brigid is in Indonesia? Still?”

“Yes. Brigid is switching places with a plot of empty ocean. When Brigid is in Ireland, the cold water space is in Indonesia. The chieftains choose when we are moving.”

“Oh man, I really need to learn more magical theory. That’s… wow.”

If this is the strength of Edelgard’s posse, Claude is in serious danger of becoming Minion #4.

At the end of the night, Claude hasn’t gained much except for some sort of vague alliance with Sylvain against being sucked into Edelgard’s orbit. As much as an agreement made solely with eyebrow raises and pointed looks can be called an “alliance”, anyway.

Is he reading too much into every minute interaction between his housemates? Probably. This is why Slytherin sucks.

* * *

Meanwhile, in the scheme-free Hufflepuff first year girls’ dorm, Hilda Valentine Goneril is _suffering_. All her housemates are super sweet, and everyone is dressed in cute pajamas, and she’s already got all her slumber party essentials out of her trunk – the nail polish and makeup and accessory making kit and _everything_, and it’s _all ruined_.

“It’s not _fair_,” she says, definitely not for the first time today. “I told the Hat, I did! I said, _anywhere_ but Hufflepuff. I said, I said I’m _lazy_ and I won’t do any work and I’ll only hold them back. There must have been a mistake!”

“Um,” says Marianne, gaze lowered to her left hand where Hilda is diligently applying the sparkly baby blue polish that was ‘ohmigosh so you, Mari!’. It has star-shaped bits of glitter in it. “I d-don’t think that’s true? You work very hard, Hilda.”

Leonie is sitting on the next bed over, double-checking her school supplies for the next day. She sports a brand new friendship bracelet and fierce tiger-print nails. Lysithea is next to her, working through a third year textbook. She has a new hair clip and metallic purple nails.

When Hilda looks to them to resolve the disagreement, she’s hit by two silent disbelieving stares that seem to say, ‘You’ve been working all night making accessories from scratch and giving us all makeovers’. Lysithea cheekily lifts up her nails for inspection.

“S-see? Everyone agrees…”

“Oh come on, you guys! I stress-craft!”


End file.
